Shouldn’t somebody have some sort of independent oversight into how political parties elect their leaders?

It’s a question on the minds of more than a few BC Green and Conservative members, as the two parties struggle through membership controversies that threaten to undermine the legitimacy of their respective leadership races.

For the BC Conservatives, the question centres around more than 2,100 new memberships that suddenly appeared in Kelowna, on the eve of that riding’s upcoming vote in John Rustad’s leadership review process.

They were peculiar memberships, to say the least. The names were mostly South Asian.

The phone numbers all read “1111111111” or “2222222222.” The email addresses followed the identical format of firstname.lastname@getcloudmail.co. And they all landed at the same time, just after a membership cutoff deadline in late August.

The suspicious details led some to wonder if the party was trying to stack the deck in Rustad’s favour in his leadership review.

“The Conservative Party regularly conducts security checks on new memberships,” the party said in a statement.

“Like in most leadership reviews and elections, there are anomalies. We have identified some in our new lists and we [are] ensuring that only legitimate members in good standing will have the privilege of voting in the leadership review and participating in any other party activities.”

The memberships were cancelled.

But 150 that fit the same format were also reported in Richmond, and 100 more in Delta—ridings where the leadership review vote has already occurred.

Part of the complication is that the BC Conservatives have chosen a torturously long leadership review process that runs from June to December and requires individual votes in 93........

© BIV